Week 6 Reading - John Grierson's 'First Principles of Documentary'

 The main issue raised throughout this weeks reading is the idea of voyeurism and is it okay, especially within a field like documentary filmmaking, where you are going into people's homes and telling their story. The reason documentary has to indulge into voyeurism is because natural material is documentary, without it, it is just a regular film. In this reading the main principles are spoken about, how you should film in a living scene with a real story, the best docs have the original actor to give more meaning to doc and the need for raw material with spontaneous gestures is what the whole field stands on. The way to combat this issue is to build trust with the pps and to make sure they are consenting the whole way through. With this there should be no issue of voyeurism being too intrusive.

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